The Virgin's Sicilian Protector

Nothing had prepared her for the devastation he wrought on her mouth or on her soul as he forced her lips apart with the bold flick of his tongue. The heat of his body was dangerously addictive and, when his arms closed around her like bands of steel, trapping her against him, she melted in the inferno.

His kiss was all her fantasies rolled into one. Masterful and merciless, he demanded a response that she was powerless to deny him. She closed her eyes and her senses sang to the slide of his lips over hers and the taste of him on the tip of her tongue. He made her ache everywhere.

Needing to be even closer to him, she pressed her pelvis against his. They fitted together like two pieces of a jigsaw. But, before she had time properly to register the shockingly hard bulge of his arousal beneath his jeans, he lifted his mouth from hers at the same time as he withdrew his arms from around her waist and returned his hands to her shoulders.

This time he did push her away from him, so forcefully that she would have stumbled if he had not tightened his grip on her shoulders, and she feared her bones might snap.

‘So, what is your plan, Arianna?’ he drawled, no sign in his voice or his sardonic smile of the tumultuous passion that had exploded between them seconds earlier. ‘I suppose you think you can accuse me of sexual harassment to give you a legitimate reason to fire me? But it won’t wash, princess. It will be your word against mine.’

She sensed the suggestion in his scathing tone that his testimony would hold more credence than hers. After all, she was the darling of the tabloids, renowned for her outrageous behaviour with a string of celebrity lovers. It took every ounce of her willpower not to let him see how much his jibe had hurt, or how vulnerable she felt, still reeling from the kiss that patently had not affected him.

‘Of course I wouldn’t make a false allegation,’ she said stiffly. ‘It would be a terrible thing to do when too many women genuinely suffer sexual harassment.’

He looked at her curiously, as if she had surprised him, but then he shrugged. ‘So why did you come on to me? I am under no illusions about you, Arianna. I warned you not to play games and I meant it. Your father hired me to be your bodyguard and I will not allow you to distract me. Nor, I should make it clear, do my duties include keeping you entertained with sex. So, if that is what you were hoping for when you kissed me, you’re out of luck.’

Arianna wished that the ground would open up and swallow her, but pride came to her rescue and she gave a tinkling laugh as brittle as thin ice on a frozen pond. ‘I can hardly bear the disappointment,’ she said with a theatrical pout. ‘At least you don’t need to worry about drowning in the pool, Mr Vasari. That over-inflated ego of yours should help to keep you afloat.’

* * *

Santino dropped his hands down to his sides and clenched them into fists as Arianna spun away from him and marched across the terrace. Well done, he congratulated himself sarcastically. It was crucial that he gained her trust but all he had succeeded in doing was alienating her.

If he had any sense he would tear his gaze away from the perfect, peachy roundness of her bottom cheeks sassily displayed by her daring choice of swimwear. But his common sense, like his self-control, had gone up in flames when she had put her mouth on his. It occurred to him as he stared at her delectable derriere that it was unlikely she would actually swim in that miniscule bikini and that its purpose instead was to allow her to flaunt her incredible body.

She stepped through the open glass doors into the house and only when she had disappeared from view did he realise that he had been holding his breath. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply, but even though she was no longer standing in front of him the lingering scent of her perfume—an intriguing blend of exotic floral notes and something spicier and boldly sensual—inflamed his senses.

Why the hell had he kissed her? Telling himself that technically she had kissed him first did nothing to appease his conscience. He should have pulled his mouth away from hers, but there had been something curiously innocent about the tentative brush of her lips over his that had surprised him. Because he knew all about Arianna Fitzgerald—and ‘innocent’ was not a word ever associated with her.

The truth, Santino acknowledged grimly, was that his usual, logical thought process had deserted him the instant he’d set eyes on her and he’d felt a jolt of lust in his groin so intense that it had hurt. It had felt like a punch, as though he’d been winded and he couldn’t catch his breath.

His reaction puzzled him. He was no stranger to beautiful women and he enjoyed an active sex life uncomplicated by emotional entanglements. The women he dated were intelligent professionals—elegant, discreet and unlikely to be plastered over the gutter press half-undressed, he thought, glancing with distaste at the picture of Arianna on the front of the newspaper.

Everything he had heard about her reinforced his belief that she had been over-indulged by her long-suffering father. Every picture of her when she was actually dressed showed that she had expensive tastes in designer clothes, shoes, handbags and fabulous jewellery—presumably all paid for by her doting daddy. In short, Arianna was the kind of woman he despised, but frustratingly his libido did not care that she was a spoilt socialite and his erection was uncomfortably hard pressing against the zip of his jeans.

The turquoise pool looked inviting with sun glinting on the surface. Earlier he’d pulled on a pair of swim-shorts beneath his clothes, thinking there would be time for him to swim while he waited for Arianna to wake up. His jaw clenched as he remembered her remark that she liked to sunbathe naked. Knowing that Arianna was a flirtatious tease did nothing to ease the throb of his arousal. Cursing himself for his weakness, he stripped off his clothes and dived into the pool. He swam as if his life depended on it—thirty lengths, fifty—until his shoulders ached and his chest burned and his rampant libido was subdued.

* * *

Later he made a detailed check of the villa’s grounds and was concerned by the lack of security. The butler had explained that he locked the front door at night but that Arianna liked to leave her bedroom window open while she slept. The easy access to Villa Cadenza from the private beach was another problem. It would be feasible for kidnappers to climb over the wall and jump down onto the terrace. They could take Arianna at gunpoint through a door in the wall that led to the beach and force her onto a waiting boat without any of the villa’s staff noticing or raising the alarm.

As Santino walked into the house he heard the sound of a car’s engine. Hurrying back outside, he glimpsed the tail lights of the sports car that he’d seen parked in the garage disappear out of the courtyard. He knew the car belonged to Arianna. Damn her! Her insubordination was infuriating, but he was more furious with himself for not keeping a closer eye on her.

‘Did Arianna say where she was going?’ he asked Filippo.

The butler shook his head. ‘No, but she often visits the beauty salon in the town, and Giovanni’s Bar next to the beach is a popular venue where she meets her friends.’

There was also a four-by-four parked in the garage and fortunately the keys were in the ignition. Santino jumped in and fired the engine. The road outside the villa was not overlooked by any other houses for part of the way down the mountain and he was worried that the kidnappers could be waiting to ambush Arianna as she drove away from Villa Cadenza. Moments later he drove out of the gates and was soon hurtling around the hairpin bends, speeding along the road that wound down to the coast.

Despite his simmering temper he could not fail to appreciate the spectacular scenery. The towering grey cliffs were covered with lemon groves that sloped down to the coast. Dominating the skyline was the azure Tyrrhenian Sea sparkling in the bright summer sunshine. The coastline here was similar to his birthplace and the place he thought of as home, Sicily. The difference was that Positano, the same as most of the other towns on the Amalfi coast, had become a chic and expensive tourist destination favoured by the glitterati.

Rounding another bend, the town was revealed in all its picturesque beauty. Pink, peach and terracotta-coloured houses clung perilously to the cliffs and looked as though they were in danger of tumbling into the sea. At the heart of the town stood the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, with its eye-catching dome made of blue, green and yellow tiles. But Santino’s eyes were fixed firmly on the silver sports car ahead of him on the road. He saw the car’s brake lights flash on as Arianna’s progress was impeded by a bus trundling along in front of her.

There was no possibility of overtaking on the narrow road and it was another five minutes before the bus pulled into a bus stop. After another mile or so Arianna turned up a narrow road and Santino followed her. Most of Positano was a pedestrian zone and tourists had to park in one of the garages on the edge of the town. But she drove down a back street where there was parking for local residents and swung her car into a vacant space.

Santino parked behind the open-top sports car and jumped out of the four-by-four. He strode up to the car, leaned over and snatched the key out of the ignition before Arianna had a chance to stop him.

‘You really are the most tedious man,’ she said languidly, although he sensed the effort it took her to control her temper.

‘That’s not the impression you gave when you kissed me earlier.’ He felt a spurt of satisfaction when she bit her lip, and dismissed the odd idea that her air of vulnerability was not an act.

Her eyes were hidden behind oversized designer sunglasses and he was frustrated that he had no idea what she was thinking. She looked expensively chic in tight white jeans and a blue-and-white-striped Breton top. A red silk scarf kept her long chestnut hair back from her face. Her lips were coated in scarlet gloss and he felt a crazy urge to kiss her until he had removed all traces of lipstick from her mouth.

‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming into town?’

‘Because I’m going to the beauty salon,’ she told him in a bored tone, nodding towards a shop with the name Lucia’s Salon over the door. ‘I don’t need a bodyguard while I’m having my nails done.’ She threw her hands up in the air. ‘Look around you. There are no paparazzi here to report on my wild behaviour that might embarrass my dear daddy.’

She started to walk towards the salon and glared at him when he fell into step beside her. ‘You can’t come in. If you insist on staying, you can wait outside, but don’t blame me if you get bored, Mr Vasari.’

‘I doubt I could ever get bored around you,’ he said drily. ‘And I thought we had agreed to drop the formality, Arianna.’

She spun round to face him and jabbed her finger into his chest. ‘I didn’t agree to anything, certainly not to my every move being watched by one of my father’s sycophants. I demand that you give me some space.’

Despite his intention to try and win her trust, Santino felt riled by her withering tone. He was tempted to tell her that, far from being her father’s sycophant, Randolph had begged him to be her bodyguard.

‘You’re not really in a position to make demands, are you, Arianna? If I were you I would remember that your father promised to stop your allowance if you refuse my protection. How would you survive?’ he taunted. ‘It’s not as if you have a successful career to fund your extravagant lifestyle. You simply leech off your father.’

‘If I want your advice, I’ll ask for it,’ she snapped, jabbing her finger into his chest a second time.

‘Do that again and I guarantee you won’t like the consequences.’

‘What will you do?’ Her husky voice was laced with amusement. ‘Will you put me across your knee and spank me?’

Desire kicked hard in his groin at the erotic images her words evoked. His nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. ‘Would you like me to? Are those the kinds of games you like to play?’ he drawled, fighting an unbearable temptation to pull her into his arms and cover her sulky mouth with his. She was the most infuriating woman he had ever met, and he could not comprehend why she made him feel more alive than he had felt in years.

He stretched out his hand and removed her sunglasses. She blinked in the bright sunshine and the flecks of gold in her brown eyes gleamed with temper.

‘Give those back immediately.’

He made a tutting sound. ‘Try saying “please”. Didn’t your parents teach you better manners when you were a child?’

Something flickered in her gaze that surely could not be sadness, Santino told himself. Arianna was a beautiful, rich heiress and she wanted for nothing.

‘My mother cleared off to the other side of the world with her lover when I was eleven,’ she told him in a hard voice. ‘My father didn’t know how to deal with my “difficult behaviour” when I cried every night. He was so desperate to send me back to boarding school that he drove me there himself—the first and last time he took any interest in my education. I didn’t see him again for months. Every school holiday, he used to send me out to Villa Cadenza with a nanny.’

She snatched her sunglasses out of Santino’s fingers and replaced them on her nose. ‘The only thing I learned from my parents is to put me first, and look after myself, because no one else gives a damn.’

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